In many telecommunication systems, communications networks are used to exchange messages among several interacting spatially-separated devices. Networks may be classified according to geographic scope, which could be, for example, a metropolitan area, a local area, or a personal area. Such networks would be designated respectively as a wide area network (WAN), metropolitan area network (MAN), local area network (LAN), or personal area network (PAN). Networks also differ according to the switching/routing technique used to interconnect the various network nodes and devices (e.g. circuit switching vs. packet switching), the type of physical media employed for transmission (e.g. wired vs. wireless), and the set of communication protocols used (e.g. Internet protocol suite, SONET (Synchronous Optical Networking), Ethernet, etc.).
An access point may connect a group of wireless devices to a LAN, and the wireless devices may communicate through the access point. In enterprise deployments, WLANs are typically used to provide end users access to network resources and network services and a gateway to the Internet. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) defines a number of architectures for implementing a WLAN. IEEE 802.11 and 802.11x refers to a family of specifications developed by the IEEE for WLAN technology.